Review of Vulgar (2002) by Thorne W — 22 Oct 2009

After being a devoted fan of SModcast and Kevin Smith in general for a long time, I've learned quite a bit about his best friend Bryan Johnson, mainly that he's hilarious and that he self-admittedly suffers from some form of depression and had a strange upbringing. He is best friends with Kevin Smith, and because of that I figured that the film that he wrote and directed with Smith's help, Vulgar, would be some reflection of the hilariously ribald goodness that regularly gets churned out by View Askew. I knew the movie was going to be dark, but I figured that Vulgar the Clown was some sort of vigilante... how wrong I was.

I have never seen a more depressing movie in my entire life. There are a total of two likable characters (then Walter Flannagan's brief cameo) surrounded entirely by bitter, bickering individuals. Things only seem to get worse after the main character is brutally assaulted by a seedy Deliverance-esque family, the aftermath of which brings Brian O'Halloran into his most brilliant moment of acting to date. For the rest of the film you desire retribution for the crimes committed against the protagonist, but are constantly angered by his own refusal to act, leaving you completely unsatisfied.

Overall, it was an okay idea that was executed equally as poorly. The writing and acting was sub-par, though I really would like to see Bryan Johnson direct something else in the future.

Other than that, the scene featuring Edgar Johnson, the director's father, raises an interesting question: what kind of childhood did Bryan have to make him cast his father in a role where he gets raped and burned to death by a blow torch? Just wondering...